


Take What The Water Gave Me

by Redrikki



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Drowning, F/F, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25602223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Quynh drowns and wakes and in between are Booker and Andromache. She would take his life if she could.So she does.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 85
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11, femslashficlets: folktale trope challenge





	Take What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [femslashficlets folktale tropes challenge](https://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/419465.html) "liminal time." Also doubles as my fill for "resurrection" on my [hurt-comfort bingo card.](https://redrikki.dreamwidth.org/52385.html#cutid1)
> 
> Title comes from the song by Florence and the Machine.

Quynh doesn’t live long enough to dream. She drowns and wakes and for centuries there is nothing in between. Then there is a man. His death is brutal and a welcome respite from the terrible monotony of her own. Now in between deaths she sees his life: battles and domestic scenes, beloved strangers and Andromache. Her Andromache.

There is something wrong with her, though. For as long as Quynh had known her, Andromache had a spark in her eyes, a fire in her soul. Even as they sat in their cell, waiting to be burned, it had been there, drawing Quynh in like a moth to the flame. This Andromache’s eyes are dull, cold, doused. It is as if she has been drowned by the world as surely as Quynh has been drowned by the sea. It is monstrously unfair that this man gets to spend his time with her yet can’t even see what is wrong. Quynh would take his life if she could.

So she does.

Quynh drowns and wakes choking on air. Breathing is so much more complicated than she remembers. It doesn’t help that this body is all wrong, too large hands clawing at a too flat chest. Air is nothing like water, too light and too heavy all at once and she can not get enough of it.

“Another nightmare, Book?” Andromache sits sprawled in a nearby chair, a half-empty bottle in her lap. She sounds too tired to actually care about the answer.

“Andromache, it’s me,” Quynh says in the Vietnamese of her childhood. It feels strange in this man’s mouth, but the words light something in Andromache’s eyes. There’s the spark, drawing her in like aways.

“Quynh,” she whispers like a prayer she is too afraid to hope will be answered.

They are kissing before Quynh has made the conscious decision to move. The bottle, forgotten, falls from Andromache’s lap and smashes on the floor between them. The shards dig into Quynh’s feet, but she does not care. Oh, she has missed this, at least as much as she has missed air and food and life. Andromache clings to her like a drowning man, reciting her name like a mantra each time they come up for breath. Quynh would return the favor if it didn’t take so much effort when there are better things to do.

Working together, they manage to get Andromache’s shift over her head and onto the floor. Quynh steps back to admire her lover. The man has never seen this. It is a sight only for her. Somewhere, in a distant corner of her mind, she is aware that the man is in her place, drowning. He must have died several times by now. She can not bring herself to care. Andromache’s mouth tastes of cheap wine, her body of sweat, and her cunt of the sea. Quynh is drowning in her and then she’s just drowning.

She thrashes against the confines of her cage. She can’t be back, not now! It’s not fair, but at least she has a way out. Quynh dies with a smile on her face and waits for the man to fall asleep.


End file.
